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Cite from cbsnews article:

Rodriguez uses his photography skills to taken[sic] 360 degree shots of tree canopies, then he prints them and fits them onto ceiling tiles, so when you look up, it feels like you're sitting under a tree. "And it has all those elements of the science that helps calm you down, helps you focus and communicate," he said.

But someone says that helps should replace with help, which means the result is:

"And it has all those elements of the science that help calm you down, help you focus and communicate," he said.

Because he believed that help is the predicate verb of elements.

According to the original article, the context and language sense, I prefer to use the helps.

Which is the true answer, and could somebody give me some guidelines or advices?

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  • Elements help calm you down, science doesn't. But it's hardly noticeable with the verb sitting next to science. Probably a duplicate here.
    – Yosef Baskin
    Commented Aug 27 at 15:42
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    People don't always use perfect grammar when speaking. And conjugation is also dependent on dialect, it's possible he's from a community that conjugates verbs like this. "helps" would be correct in standard English.
    – Barmar
    Commented Aug 27 at 16:19
  • The question is really what the speaker intended. Statements involving collective nouns are frequently ambiguous and can be interpreted as either singular or plural. For example the phrase "parts of the chair that needed replacing" implies that the parts rather than the chair needed to be substituted. But it's quite possible, if less likely, that it was the chair itself. The context may or may not guide you. Few English speakers would find a problem with the sentence as it stands.
    – Ronald Sole
    Commented Aug 27 at 17:49

2 Answers 2

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The simple answer, and the "right" one for this situation, is that people can use words a bit carelessly when speaking, changing their mind in the middle of a sentence. Often journalists might make such small corrections for them when quoting, but this one didn't. The takeaway for you is Trust what you already know about grammar, and ignore small obvious errors, especially when the meaning is clear.

The more analytical answer is: We have: "... it has all those elements [plural noun] of the science [singular noun] that helps [plural verb] calm you down...." There is no mismatch in number if Rodriguez meant this "the science helps calm you down." This meaning is less likely, and would also be unclear; what is "the science"? A more likely understanding is that "the" wasn't necessary and he's speaking of "science" in general, and the extra article was accidental; and that he should have said "help." The simplest understanding of his general meaning is: "Adding artistic interest to the ceiling helps stimulate creativity, and using photos from the natural sciences helps calm you down and focus you." It seems wrong to go looking for more complicated meanings.

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  • The linked CBS News article says 'research shows being in and around nature eases anxiety and has benefits for students' . That's 'the science'. The article links to 'Urban Nature Experiences Reduce Stress in the Context of Daily Life Based on Salivary Biomarkers' in Frontiers in Psychology and also 'Influence of landscape outside the window on the anxiety level of self-separation people during COVID-19' in the International Journal of Low-Carbon Technologies, Volume 17, 2022. Looks pretty scientific to me.
    – Michael Harvey
    Commented Aug 27 at 18:58
  • @MichaelHarvey True, but I'd argue that there's still a vagary or misplacement of reference in his quoted sentence such that the meaning is perfectly clear to us but it doesn't bear close analysis, and would be reworded for formal writing. Technically "the science" still doesn't "calm you down," and the trees aren't even "elements of the science." But a reasonable amplification is "it has all those elements [of nature which are shown by] the scien[tific studies] to calm you down." I.e., we should take his general meaning and dismiss any concerns that come from too close a reading.
    – Andy Bonner
    Commented Aug 27 at 19:02
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If there exists a "science that helps calm you down, helps you focus and communicate", then that could be referred to as "the science" that does that, and the singular verb "helps" could be used.

I don't think such a science exists.

There should be no article there: it could be "those elements of science that..help...", but even then, what was written contains run-on sentences. It looks like bad writing.

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